More companies should do this: Run large scale surveys of employees to discover what makes people happy and productive ([1])

Combining dissimilar fields is hard, but can also lead to discovering lots of low hanging fruit (at least from where you are standing) that no one else has picked ([1])

Good idea from a recent Google paper: Mine the web to build up knowledge of objects that are likely and unlikely to co-occur, then use that to accept or reject candidates during object recognition ([1][2])

Cool throwback idea from a recent MSR paper: Old school circuit-switched networks in the data center using cheap commodity FPGAs ([1][2])

“There doesn't need to be a protective shell around our researchers where they think great thoughts" ([1][2])